When I started this blog, I wanted it to be something more then just another how to lift weights site.  I wanted to provide information and inspiration so that my readers could then become truly extraordinary.  I believe that the same skills to becoming great in all facets of life are universal.  I also believe that all areas of your life must be nurtured and fed each and every day in order to achieve the high level of performance that we all want.

We cannot become successful in business, for instance if we don’t take care of our health.  We can’t become successful as a parent, or a husband or wife or as a teacher or lawyer unless we first take the time to work on ourselves spiritually, mentally and physically.  It all ties together and one can’t work without the others.  It is crucial that you work on all three areas of your being everyday.

In this video, a famous and extremely successful person explains the secrets of success.  Be it success in life or in the gym, the skills are universal.  Take the time to watch this short presentation and become inspired to do things in and out of the gym that you never thought possible.

Become Extraordinary!

Dennis

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The new year has arrived and it’s time to set some new goals.  Why set goals?  Because they actually enhance your performance.  Goals keep you focused and motivated and all but guarantee progress in your business, in your life and in the gym.  Without goals, you are just spinning your wheels without any clear direction.  My best years in the gym have been the ones in which I have a specific set of goals to focus on and strive to accomplish.  A look back at my training logs revealed that my gains have been almost twice as many when I have specific goals to work towards then when I didn’t.

There are many schools of thought about goal setting so I will share what has worked for me.

First, I start off with a set of general goals to be accomplished by years end.  I then break it down into 90 day increments and finally I like to work backwards to determine what I need to do weekly and even sometimes daily to ultimately reach my year end goals.

Now, not all goals will take a year to accomplish.  If your goal is to deadlift 500 pounds for instance, you might be able to accomplish that in 2 or 3 12 week cycles.  By June, you may have met that goal.  Not to worry because all you do is check that one of the list in June and move on.  Maybe you shoot for another 50 or 75 pounds or you just work to maintain the weight.

If you goal is to lose weight, even if it won’t take 365 days to do it, you still would want to focus on a specific weight to be at on December 31rst.  Even if you hit your ideal weight come July, you obviously would want to maintain it so you would still need to work at it all year.  In that instance, your daily weight loss “to do list” would change once you got to your desired weight.  Same goal but a different approach from weight loss to weight maintenance.

Ok, we have now set a set of goals to reach by the end of the year, now break it down into 90 day cycles.  We do this because we want to evaluate our progress often, but not to often, in order to be sure we are on the right course.   There are some goals that may take you every bit of the year to finish and if we wait to long to evaluate where we are in the process, it might be too late to do anything about it if you are off course.

After we break it down into 90 day cycles, we now need to reduce it again to weekly and daily to do lists.   Some goals like weight loss or gain require daily action steps in order to reach them.  Other goals may be better measured on a weekly basis.  I break my workouts down by the week.  I have a specific set of workouts that all fit together into weekly cycles.  I usually workout 5 days a week so if I miss a workout on say a Monday, I just make it up another day.  On Sunday I evaluate my past weeks workouts (takes less then 5 minutes) and prepare the workouts for the upcoming week.

On some goals like lifting a specific amount of weight, it is beneficial to determine your ultimate goal and then work backwards to see what must be done daily, weekly and monthly to accomplish it.  Lets say that I am performing a 12 week overhead barbell press cycle.  I would first write down the weight that I would like to lift during the 12th week.  I then determine how much weight I would need to add each week to get from where I am now to where I want to be at week 12.  Same can be done for any of your goals.  Want to lose 20 pounds by summer?  If your “summer” starts in June, that’s roughly 3.3 pounds a month.  That seems more manageable then 20 pounds and you can check your progress ever 30 days to see how it’s going.

Two last points to consider.  Your goals have to be reasonable and focused and you have to write them down and review them daily.

Reasonable and focused means that you can’t just say, “I want to lift a lot of weight” or “I want to loose weight”.  Those goals aren’t very focused.  You also can’t say “I want to lift 200 pounds overhead” if you can’t even lift 100.  If you set a goal and reach it by August, set a new goal for the remainder of the year.  It is also best to focus on a few goals rather then 20 or 30.  Don’t overwhelm yourself.

Lastly, and this if extremely important, write them down and review them often; daily if possible.

You don’t have to review necessarily the daily goals or the weekly ones but you need to keep in the front of your mind what you want at the end of the year.  If you want to be at a certain weight, write it down and think about it every day.  It’s best to focus on the overall goal then to get bogged down in the details.  Doing so tends to confuse your mind and you can lose the big picture.

Oh, and one last thing.  When you set a goal, believe you can accomplish, don’t just hope you can.  Hope won’t get you there, only a heart felt belief in yourself and you abilities will.

Good luck and here’s to making 2010 your best year ever!

Dennis

P.S. – Check out my recent post on the power of belief.  Believe you can and you will!

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It’s that time again, the end of one year and the beginning of another.  That can only mean one thing, it’s time to set some goals for the upcoming 365 days.  Unfortunately, most of those goals will not be reached and many will be disappointed with themselves as 2010 turns to 2011.

In my experience, there are many reasons why we fail to improve ourselves and grow from one year to the next.  The biggest reason of course is that many of us don’t set goals at all.  The second biggest reason is that some simply don’t have belief in themselves.  They are dead in the water before the clock strikes midnight.

Once you have set your goals and have mapped out a plan for achieving them, you must have unquestioned belief in your ability to achieve the things you have determined as worthy of your efforts.  You also must have belief that you can become the person you need to become.  Being successful in reaching your desired outcome has more with growing and evolving as a person then it does with just performing a prescribed set of tasks.  It is your belief that you are capable of becoming that person that ultimately leads you down the path of success.

If you decide that your goal next year it to loose 50 pounds, you have to be able to envision yourself 50 pounds lighter.  You have to literally create a picture in your mind of what you will look like and what you will feel like after you have lost the weight.  This vision helps you create the belief in your mind that you are capable of becoming the person you see in your head.  If there is any doubt what so ever, your mind literally will not allow you to reach your desired weight.  Let me repeat that, if you doubt yourself, your mind will not permit you to succeed. 

When a powerlifter approaches the platform in an attempt to hoist a barbell over his head, he must have absolute unquestioned faith that he is capable of, and will be successful in the attempt.  Doubt cannot be allowed to creep into his head.  Image if you were skydiving and there was doubt in your mind as to whether or not the parachute would open.  Would you jump?  Hell no you wouldn’t.  Same holds true with your goal setting.  If you have doubt’s you can achieve them, why bother setting them in the first place.

The long and the short of it is, believe in yourself.  Believe that you can, and you will. 

Yours in Health,

Dennis

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I started this blog because I wanted to provide good quality information that others could benefit from in their quest to become stronger and better conditioned.  The information in these pages is derived from my studies and my experiences over the last 25 plus years in the iron game.  

I started lifting weights seriously when I was in my mid teens and have become extremely passionate about trying to reach the limits of my physical potential.  Now I have become passionate about helping others do the same thing.  Sharing what I have learned is my way of paying it forward. 

I have learned a lot over the last quarter century, mostly about what doesn’t work.  I am the classic hard gainer who has to work for every ounce of muscle I have.  I started out by reading an issue of Muscle & Fitness and following the workouts described.  My dream was to become a pro bodybuilder so that’s the kind of workouts I did.  

Although I abandoned that dream in my early twenties, I continued to train like a bodybuilder with my primary goal being to get as big as I could.  Being strong wasn’t my focus at that time.  I figured that by getting big, I would get strong as well. 

In my mid twenties I was a follower of Mike Mentzer and his high intensity principles.  My workouts were short and very intense.  I predominantly performed 1 or 2 lifts per body part with 1 working set after the warm up.  That set was always to all out failure and sometimes beyond.  I never left anything in the tank.  I lifted at one speed and that was all out balls to the wall.  

I continued to study and try new things but wasn’t ever able to see the results that I had hoped for.  I was fit and stronger then the average person but I had hoped to have more success then I had at that point. 

It was about 8 or 9 years ago that I first read an article by Pavel Tsatsouline in Muscle Media.  I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember being intrigued by what Pavel was saying.  What he said was nothing new because it was based on what the Soviet lifters had been doing for many years.  And doing very well I might add.  

Although what he preached was nothing new, it was to me.  I quickly began to read everything Pavel wrote and started buying his books and DVD’s and studying and practicing his methods.  That’s when I began using kettlebells and no longer trained to failure.  I changed my entire approached to working out and that’s when I started to realize my true potential. 

I now focus all my attention on strength and power.  Muscles for show no longer interest me.  A huge portion of my workouts are performed with kettlebells, probably 75 or 80 percent.  The rest of the time I use a barbell or perform odd lifts.  

I avoid training to failure like the plague and cycle my training to always be making progress.  My reps for grind type lifts like military presses, dead lifts or bent presses are kept around 5.  I only go higher for explosive type lifts like snatches or jerks. Back in the old days, a rarely performed less then 8 reps and usually did 10 or 12.  Also gone are the days of hour and a half or two hour workouts.  40 to 45 minutes tops. 

The biggest change is probably my focus on total body lifts.  Barbell curls serve no purpose in real life and do nothing to make you strong and powerful.  I practice moves like the Turkish Get Up, the Bent Press, the Clean and Jerk and deadlifts.  These lifts require you to coordinate all the muscles of the body to work in concert with each other.  You must learn to move under load, a feat that mimics real life.  

I have learned how to use body weight only lifts to supplement my resistance training and lastly, I have added odd, non-conventional lifts and feats of strength.  Pull ups holding onto a rope with one hand, sandbag carries, phonebook and card tears and nail bending.  

This paradigm shift in my thinking brought on by the desire and passion to continue my workout education has brought me much success in the last 6 or 7 years.  I have made more gains in that time then in the almost 20 years prior.    

I have never been stronger and better conditioned then I am now at 41.  Every year I continue to make progress by continuing to educate myself and practice what I learn.  

In this age of massive amounts of information exchange, there has never been more knowledge available to you and me with regard to strength and conditioning.  Yet with all the advancements in the field of physical culture, it is the simple things that have always worked in the past to make men strong that will work in the future. 

Kettlebells have been around for hundreds of years and are as effective now as they were then.  A simple circular piece of iron with a handle helped change who I am physically and mentally.  I only discovered kettlebells because I never stopped trying to learn and improve my approach towards lifting.  

Never stop asking the question, what if?  Never stop asking the question, what about me?  I am who I am and have achieved the things I have because I am always asking those questions and seeking the answers. 

Yours in Health, 

Dennis

P.S. – Have a question about anything I’m doing, email me and I’ll be more then happy to answer it.  ironkettlebellfitness@gmail.com

Before entering into a fitness routine, especially one that incorporates kettlebells, be sure to consult with your physician or medical professional to be sure you are healthy enough to begin a strength and conditioning regimen.  Be sure to learn the proper way to perform each lift and complete each exercises in strict form employing a spotter when applicable.  In other words, if you hurt yourself, it’s your fault.

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“Magnificent desolation”, those were the words that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin used to describe the moon forty years ago today.  On July 20, 1969, the United States succeeded in accomplishing the goal that President Kennedy had challenged us to achieve, putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth before the decade of the 60’s was over.

Although I was less then a year old at the time, that accomplishment has inspired me and continues to inspire me each and every day.  Such a lofty, seemingly impossible feat was the moon landing.  Yet, with a singleness of purpose, NASA and it’s thousands of contractors would deem failure not an option. 

Yesterday I got the opportunity to meet three of those hero’s from the moon landing days, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Alan Bean.  What you come away with is that these “ordinary” guys set out to achieve something extraordinary.  And in doing so, they themselves became extraordinary.

Use the model of the moon landing in your life so that you to can become extraordinary.  It’s the classic set a goal, set a timetable to complete it, write it down and go to work.  I’m not suggesting to you that you need to walk on another world.  What I am saying is that you should not accept normal and average as the standard by which you live your life. 

Your fitness goals should be lofty and they should have a definitive completion date.  Don’t say that you want to just slim down over the next six months, make your goal definable.  I will loose 20 pounds by October 1rst, or I will weight 160 pounds by September 15th, or I will be a size 4 by November 5th. 

You want to set a specific goal with a specific timetable in which to accomplish it and you want to set check points along the way to measure your progress by.  Come up with your ultimate outcome and a reasonable time in which to achieve it.  Then break it down into quarters so that one, it will become manageable in your mind and two, you can evaluate along the way to make sure your headed in the right direction.

Performing 100 kettlebell snatches with a 24kg bell can seem like a daunting task, maybe even impossible to you.  Breaking it down by saying that you will perform 25 kettlebell snatches this month and 50 next, and 75 the month after that and finally 100, that becomes more reasonable in your mind. 

Goal setting if pretty straight forward and as long as you do something in the way of setting goals, you are ten steps ahead of the normal average person.  I would even say that you are well on your way to becoming extraordinary!

Yours in Health

Dennis

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